Punter Jon Ryan, tight end Luke Willson are living their dreams

Punter Jon Ryan came out of Regina with a big leg and a bigger dream and turned them into an outstanding NFL career. — Getty Images files

Photograph by: Otto Greule Jr
, PROVINCE

RENTON, Wash. — They would seem to have a lot in common, but once you get past the utter weirdness of their stories there are more differences than similarities.

Jon Ryan is 32 and well into the back nine of his NFL career. He’s about to enter his 11th pro season as a Pro Bowl-calibre punter and he’s been around so long that he rarely gets asked about his background.

“I just don’t hear about it as much,” he said with a laugh. “I must be getting old.”

Luke Willson, on the other hand, is a 24-year-old backup tight end with the Seattle Seahawks, which means he’s rarely asked about anything. Last year, he made the team as an unheralded fifth-round draft pick out of Rice, which was enough of a shock.

So was winning the Super Bowl.

Come to think of it, that’s another thing he shares with Ryan. But, as fascinating as their stories are to their countrymen, Willson will tell you it’s not like the two men sit around the Seahawks’ locker room, eating beaver tails, poring over back issues of The Hockey News and getting all misty over the true north strong and free.

“We haven’t talked about it a ton,” Willson said following a Seahawks workout earlier this week. “I know people are interested in it and it’s pretty cool we ended up in the same place. But it’s not like it’s a big deal to us.”

Even if it is to others.

This season, there will be approximately 1,700 players in the NFL. Depending on personnel decisions, about 16 of those 1,700 will be Canadians. As it happens, two of those 16, Ryan and Willson, play prominent roles with the Super Bowl-champion Seahawks.

Do the math. They beat impossibly long odds to get to this place and those odds get even longer when you consider their histories.

Ryan graduated from the University of Regina (!) to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to the Green Bay Packers before moving on to the Seahawks, where he’s about to start his seventh season.

Willson graduated from St. Thomas of Villanova in Lasalle, Ont., (just outside Windsor) to Rice, a school that produces more astrophysicists than NFLers, to the Seahawks, where he’s an emerging force on the offence.

I mean, salmon have a better chance of surviving their journey, but the two Canucks made it and now they’re Super Bowl champions. And, yes, that’s a pretty cool story.

“It’s all so surreal,” said Ryan, a native of Regina. “You can’t ever take a day of this for granted because you never know when it’s going to be over. You talk about the Super Bowl. To me, it hasn’t really sunk in that I play in the NFL.”

This is after nine NFL seasons. At least he sounds like a Canadian.

“It’s kind of hard to fathom,” said Wlllson, whose high school classmates included the Canucks’ Zack Kassian.

“You’re so focused here on the day-to-day, you don’t really reflect on that. But there are times you think, ‘small town in southern Ontario, going to Rice, then playing and winning the Super Bowl.’

“I’ll always cherish the experience, but it’s in the past. Right now I’m zoned into being a better player every day.”

And how good Willson can become is a topic of conversation around the ’Hawks. He’s currently listed behind starter Zach Miller on the depth chart, but there’s a school of thought he’s being groomed to replace the veteran.

He has NFL size — 6-foot-5, 250 pounds — and NFL skills — he caught 20 passes for 272 yards in his impressive rookie campaign. The next step is to improve his blocking but, like a lot of the Seahawks, Willson is nothing if not motivated.

“People don’t see the long hours you put in and the struggle,” said Willson, who went to the camp with the Blue Jays in 2011 before concentrating on the gridiron.

“When I was in college there were all these big guys from big schools and I was from a small town in southern Ontario. But that’s what drove me. I’d turn the TV on and hear them talking about this guy or that guy and I felt I was just as talented as they were.”

Ryan, for his part, came out of Regina with a big leg and a bigger dream and turned them into an outstanding NFL career. His six-year, $9.1-million deal with the ’Hawks expires in 2016 and he knows the clock is ticking. But, if it all ends tomorrow, he has a Super Bowl ring and a lifetime of memories from last season to take into retirement.

“You hear stories about what it’s like, but you can’t imagine it until you experience it,” he said. “It was the craziest offseason of my life by far and it started right after the game. There was the parade and the ceremony and the White House and going to Parliament Hill to meet the Prime Minister (Stephen Harper).

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but it kept happening over and over again.”

This summer he also hosted a charity golf tournament in Regina to raise money for a scholarship fund named for his late father Bob. There he was surrounded by family and friends, old coaches and teammates and, there, a lot of things came into focus for Ryan.

“It hit me there, where I come from, how far I’ve travelled,” he said. “There were so many people who helped me along the way. You never forget that. You never forget where you came from.”

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